After several agonizing weeks of having to talk more to my kids and watch movies with my wife from Thursday-Sunday evenings, I could not be more pleased to shout these four beautiful words aloud - "Golf is back baby!!!"

We re-start the PGA season at Fort Worth in Texas at the Colonial Country Club, or Hogans Alley as it is more affectionately known: a short(ish) Par 70 with just two Par 5’s, a whopping 12 Par 4’s, small Bent greens and reasonably narrow fairways. 

That is what will be there. What won’t be there is people, grandstands, trampled rough and the usual sight lines players have become used to seeing their shot with. 

The eerie, crowd-less conditions are not our priority though, we are looking almost exclusively at three factors: Par 4 Scoring, Proximity on Approach and Around the Green game with Bent putting a secondary consideration.

Weather wise it looks great for golf. Sunny (hot even) and not a lot of wind at this stage but monitor this prior to tee times. 

We have settled on a small 4-man card here with 12 bets in total (prices quoted below are TAB prices). 

Rory McIlroy Win @ 8.50, Top 5 @ 2.40

Before you blow up or roll your eyes at me for betting the fav to win, let me just put out a few bits of data for you. 

Firstly, as we mentioned above there are 12 Par 4’s at Colonial. Rory EATS Par 4’s, ranking #1 in this field for Par 4 scoring. Daylight is second then comes the mere mortals in Reed, Thomas and co, but Rory is in his own zone in this category and this course is giving him 12 holes to flip a wedge or a 9iron approach in. Smaller greens make it even more of an advantage to have a wedge in hand.

I put no stock in Rory not being able to putt on Bent, this time last year he was tearing Glen Abbey apart on the greens (gained 5.8). It is grossly understated just how good his recent run has been. His last 7 starts: 5, 5, 5, 3, 1, 3, 1.

By far the best player in the field and should win like it. Don’t think it will be long before we see him priced like 2005 Tiger! Double your stake!

Shane Lowry Win @ 61.00, Top 5 @ 13.00, Top 10 @ 6.50, Top 20 @ 3.25

We’ve been on Sir Shane for a while now and he is yet to rediscover his pre-Open/Open form that had us singing O Danny Boy for weeks. Really solid around the greens (#8 in field), putter is solid (#16 in field Strokes Gained: Putting on Bent) but it was his strokes gained in Par 4 scoring over the last six months that caught our eye. He is ranked #14 in the field and seems to particularly enjoy the range we’re are looking for 350-450yrds. At time of tee off, Lowry still has a Ryder Cup team to qualify for so you know he will rally after a bad hole or two.

Chris Hoot (Christian Bezuidenhout) Win @ 81.00, Top 5 @ 17.00, Top 10 @ 7.50, Top 20 @ 4.00

I’m not a fan of consecutive consonants, nor any name with double digit vowels, but that’s where the hate ends for the young South African who was rounding into really good form prior to the shutdown. 

T18 at the API (despite a final round 79!!) and bounced back well at The Players until that was canned. Before that a nice Euro stretch of 2nd in Dubai and some solid finishes at the Saudi (T21) and WGC Mexico (T29). The kid is a ball striker and on a course like this he will have the option to club down off the tee which is an area that can get him into some strife. Around the green and putting game solid. 

Can bet the Els prodigy has been enjoying some words of wisdom from the Big Easy over the last few days. Can contend here at a great price.

Bud Cauley Top 10 @ 13.00, Top 20 @ 6.00

One of Club 20’s favourite PGA roughies, Cauley was a bit of a gravy train for us from the start of swing season to the shutdown, landing a nice suite of bets at the American Express and hitting a few more T40’s along the way. His approach game was almost career best pre-covid, his around the green game is always superb (#3 in this field SG Scrambling) and that is what we are looking for. There is going to be plenty of missed greens here this week so having a guy who can get it up and down will be doubly critical. 

Does not have to worry about length off the tee, can just hit his spot and then fire at the flagstick. Missed the cut here last year but T41, T21, T14 prior shows he doesn’t mind this layout. Just needs to putt well.

Also, the AFL starts tonight. Since our main focus is the Golf, we've decided to stay away from the Collingwood vs Richmond game but... keep an eye on the Stats Insider AFL model. If you see an orange or a green smiley, get on that value play before the markets move in.

We'll be launching an email tomorrow with the best bets from the remaining Round 2 games in the AFL so make sure you check your emails.

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